Monday, January 29, 2007

So, It's OFFICIAL...IF There Is Incident, WE ARE ALL DEAD

Let's stop the games, lets spell out REALITY...Indian Point's two reactors have some serious issues. They are brittling with age, the fuel pools are leaking, they are out of space, and the only way to continue operations at the site is DRY CASK STORAGE. The reactors themselves are cobbled together old relics held together with tons of welds and patches, and the NRC just does not care...they are intent on relicensing the facility.
Today, all over America reactor host communities found out that we are being SET UP TO PLAY THE PART OF VICTIMS...The NRC has voted 5-0 that reactors do not need to be set up to defend against a LARGE ATTACKING FORCE OF TERRORISTS, or against a LARGE AIRPLANE. The NRC merely instructs them to do the best they can to mitigate radiation releases AFTER THE INCIDENT.
You see, it would be UNREASONABLE to expect reactors to actually PROTECT US from a major incident at the facility...in this case, Indian Point. We all know that the evacuation plan is USELESS, it's a piece of SHIT...yes, a piece of shit...let's stop being nice about this, when are the 20 million people around Indian Point GOING TO WAKE UP. Entergy is all but guaranteed not to pick up the tab for a major incident. In short, if we do live through the incident, if we do not die shortly there after, we will be financially RUINED.
So, where is the ANGER, were is the citizenship WAKING UP? We have 20 million people within 50 miles of Indian Point...if every one of those people tossed in ONE FREAKING DOLLAR, we can start a MOVEMENT, and that is what we need here. We needed hundreds of protectors all over that site, and if possible, on a daily basis...we need protest signs, we need IN YOUR FACE FULL PAGE ADS. We need human chains around the entire plant...question is, WHERE IS THE OUTRAGE? It's real simple...do we want to shut down Indian Point, or do we NOT want to shut down Indian Point.
If you want the facility SHUT DOWN, you are going to have to work for it. First, it takes money...right now, Green Nuclear Butterfly has NO BUDGET, no money for full page ads, no money to print up protest signs, no money to do mailings to every house in one of the five counties around the plant. Ask yourselves...Are Riverkeeper's tactics showing any real chance of VICTORY, victory meaning no relicense, and if we are lucky, an immediate order to shut the site down, not even giving Entergy another six-eight years of operation? IPSEC, is there plan going to work? SIMPLY PUT...NO! They want to be nice, they want to bake cookies and send out nice little notes to their list serves! IT WILL NOT SUCCEED.
Ask some Union Workers about being nice in negotiations, ask them where it gets them. We need to do some serious ball crushing, we need in your face, whatever it takes, we are shutting you down Entergy activism here! So, what's it going to be? Green Nuclear Butterfly is calling the citizens to action. We are calling for donations, we are calling for volunteers, we are calling for a ARMY OF PROTESTORS. Leave no doubt about it, we can shut down the reactors, we can start a movement that will close down a lot of these unsafe reactors...but not through apathy, not by expecting someone else to do it.
If you have read the writing on the wall, if you realize that it will take serious citizens involvement to shut Indian Point down, then we at the Green Nuclear Butterfly are challenging you to PLUG INTO THE MOVEMENT in the following ways.
1. Make a donation. Let's not be naive...it takes money to build a movement, it takes money to run ads, it takes money to get everyone together and working towards a common cause.
2. Sign up to volunteer. Email us at roycepenstinger@aol.com with your name, address, email and phone number.
3. Work the power of ten...if you are on board to SHUT DOWN INDIAN POINT, speak with ten of your friends and bring them on board. Talk to ten of your co-workers, ten people you go to church with.
Yes, it will take a movement, and the question is...are you going to be a part of that movement, or instead are you content to see Indian Point operating on the banks of the Hudson through 2055? Entergy is prepared to spend WHATEVER IT TAKES to relicense those two facilities, so yes we are asking for donations, and will need every penny we can get our hands on to WAGE THIS WAR, and a war it will be. Ask the people around Vermont Yankee who have watched Entergy run full page advertisements in every newspaper in Vermont, each ad filled with lies and half truths. Where do you stand? Our readership is growing, through the power of tens we can drive this movement where it needs to go, but the time has come where we need the public's help, need the public's involvement in the process.

Monday, January 29, 2007

Defending nuke plants from jet attack 'impractical,' US sez

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON ­ The Nuclear Regulatory Commission concluded Monday that it is impractical for nuclear power plant operators to try to stop terrorists from crashing an airliner into a reactor.

Plant operators instead should focus on limiting radioactive release from any such airborne attack, the agency said in a revised defense plan for America's nuclear plants.

The agency approved the new defense plan, most of which is secret, by a 5-0 vote at a brief hearing in which it was not discussed in any detail.

The new plan spells out what the operators of the nation's commercial nuclear power plants must be capable of defending against. It assumes that a terrorist attack force would be relatively small­ and that its weapons would be limited.

Critics of the NRC have said the revisions, which have been in the works for more than a year, do not fully take into account the threats to nuclear reactors in light of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

"Rather than requiring measures to prevent a plane crash from damaging vulnerable parts of a nuclear plant ... the government is relying on post-crash measures and evacuation plans," said Michele Boyd of Public Citizen's Energy Program, a nuclear industry watchdog group.

Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., in a letter to the NRC last Friday, said the agency's defense requirements should "ensure that ... the plants are prepared to defend against large attacking forces and commercial aircraft." Boxer is chair of the Senate committee with jurisdiction over the NRC.

While NRC officials have all along declined to discuss specifics of the defense plan for nuclear power plants, formally known as the Design Basis Threat, it is known to assume a relatively small attack force of no more than a half dozen attackers.

Also, the plan does not assume that any such attacking force would be armed with certain weapons like rocket-propelled grenades or other weapons frequently used by terrorists in the Middle East.

NRC officials have emphasized that the defense plan should require what is "reasonable" to be expected of a civilian security force at the 103 commercial nuclear power reactors.

The nuclear power industry has argued that it would be unreasonable to expect them to guard against any attack that employed a large, hijacked aircraft. They contend that protection againstthat sort of attack ­ or one using a large ground attack force ­ should instead be a responsibility of the government.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yeah! We need to shut down more operational infrastructure on the basis of irrational paranoia of those who dont understand anything about nuclear power or its alternatives. After all, we can allways spend an extra couple of billion on a coal plant to replace it.

Royce Penstinger said...

Dezakin:

A couple billion for a coal plant..care to tell folks how much it will cost to build the new, and yet proven generation of Nuclear reactors? Care to admit to us that the DOE, NRC and the nuclear industry are going to PUSH WASTE further down the line by reclassifying it as future use resources, claiming they can recycle it with UNPROVEN technology?

Oh, and lets not forget the fact that JUST ONE MAJOR INCIDENT at any one of the aging, decaying reactors in the current fleet will carry a price tag of no less than FIVE HUNDRED BILLION, not counting lost lives into the hundreds of thousands, and generations of increased cancers and deaths...sure, let's let the nuclear industry off the hook again. Care to share with the people who is going to MAKE US WHOLE in the case of a major nuclear incident...we will be the next VICTIMS of Katrina, our homes and lives gone, and still having a bank demand payments on mortgages for homes we can never live in again, never sell.